In a quiet village in Buckinghamshire Ned and Connie are woken by a loud banging. Reluctant to investigate, Ned sets out into the storm but gets far more than he bargained for. A naked woman lies dead in the stable; the arrival of the police onto the scene heralds the arrival of three more bodies. With the investigation underway the Thames Valley Police soon learn that the four bodies do not all come from the same family. Frederick, Jennifer and their daughter Angela have been brutally murdered along with Angela's school friend. Their son, Daniel, however, is missing from the farmhouse massacre. Is he the prime suspect for this heinous crime or did he narrowly escape an equally hideous end? As Mike Yeadings and Salmon become more involved in the investigation they discover that neither things, nor people, are quite what they seem.